Finding the Elements of Harmony

It's amazing what you can find in books these days.

On the return trip to Ponyville by foot, the disgruntled ponies encounter soapy roads and long-legged bunnies. Discord reappears, announces to Twilight that Ponyville will become the "chaos capital of the world", and vanishes. The ponies finally arrive at Golden Oak Library, but when Twilight tries to usher her friends inside, they lose even more of their color. Rarity refuses to go inside, saying she's on to Twilight's "plan" to steal "Tom" from her. Twilight finds out that Tom is Rarity's name for the boulder. Resigned, Twilight levitates the boulder and crashes it through the door, leaving a giant hole in the wall. Once inside, Twilight asks Spike to retrieve the book about the Elements of Harmony, but her friends play a game of Keep Away with the book, keeping it out of her reach. Once Twilight finally gets her hooves on the book, she finds that all of the Elements of Harmony are tucked away inside.

Frustrated that her friends no longer care about this discovery or the current crisis, Twilight forcefully puts the elements on Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, and Spike, who she assigns the role of Rainbow Dash. Twilight rallies the ponies with the plan of defeating Discord so they never have to see each other again, and they all gleefully go outside, except Rarity, who has trouble pushing "Tom" ahead of her. Twilight angrily chucks the boulder out the window, leaving another giant hole in the wall. Discord appears outside of the library, taunting them into stopping him by making a bulls-eye appear on his chest for them to "fire" at. Twilight attempts to combine the elements' power to defeat Discord, with Spike standing in for Rainbow Dash, but nothing happens. As the ponies go their separate ways, Twilight's colors turn dull and she sheds a tear that splatters in the shape of a broken heart. Discord celebrates his victory as Ponyville is driven even deeper into total chaos.

Re-discovering the importance of friendship

The friendship reports Twilight sent play a huge role here.

Twilight throws away her element of magic tiara and tells Spike that they are leaving Ponyville. However, Spike starts regurgitating a seemingly endless pile of scrolls from Princess Celestia, which turn out to be all of the friendship reports Twilight had sent to her during her time in Ponyville. After reading her own friendship reports, Twilight remembers the importance of friendship, regains her resolve and color, and sets out to restore the rest of her friends.

Reverting to their previous selves

Twilight performs a spell on Applejack.

Twilight finds Applejack at Sweet Apple Acres, and uses a memory spell to project memories of past adventures with her friends into Applejack's mind. Applejack regains her color and goes back to her original self. She confesses that she told lies because she could not face a future of their friendship ending. Twilight then performs the same spell on Fluttershy, and Fluttershy exclaims that she just had the worst dream. Twilight restores Rarity, who tosses away the boulder and says, "Let us never speak of this again." Next is Pinkie Pie, who laughs at her previous predicament.

The ponies, with color regained, chase after a gray Rainbow Dash.

The friends find Rainbow Dash, who is still brainwashed and sitting upon a small cloud, believing it to be Cloudsdale. Twilight and the other ponies sneak up to a sleeping Rainbow Dash in Twilight's balloon, and Fluttershy tries to hold down Dash so Twilight can restore her personality. However, Fluttershy, now back to her kind personality, cannot take an aggressive approach and wakes up Dash to politely ask her if she can hold her down. This prompts Dash to grab onto "Cloudsdale" and fly away. Twilight, Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie give chase in the balloon, which Fluttershy is pulling. Applejack manages to lasso Rainbow Dash, but the rope catches on Pinkie Pie and Rarity's hooves, dragging them out of the balloon as Rarity yells that Pinkie was supposed to secure the rope, still attached to the elusive Pegasus. Fluttershy is unable to keep up until she is reminded about Discord's rule over Ponyville. With that, she outpaces Rainbow Dash and the others are able to secure her while Twilight reverts Dash to her previous self.

Confronting Discord

The friends confront Discord, who is sitting on a throne holding a glass of chocolate milk. He drinks the glass and throws away the chocolate milk, which explodes. Discord, still confident of their inability to defeat him, makes himself an open target. However, now that the six ponies can wield their elements, they combine their powers and fire a giant rainbow, just like they did when they defeated Nightmare Moon, causing an explosion much like Rainbow Dash's sonic rainboom. Discord watches in horror before he is turned to stone once more. Ponyville goes back to normal, and all chaos and disharmony caused by Discord is neutralized.

Ending

At the end of the episode, Princess Celestia holds a ceremony in Canterlot, honoring the ponies for defeating Discord, where a new stained glass window depicting the friends' victory is unveiled.

Closing sequence

According to director Jayson Thiessen, one of the storyboard artists decided to board the award ceremony sequence at the end of the episode as a shot-for-shot equivalent of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, though parts of the sequence were ultimately cut to shorten the episode.[3]

Credits

This is the last episode where Lauren Faust is executive producer, the last episode to use the original theme song, and the last episode where DHX Media is credited as "Studio B". This is also the first episode to not feature the My Little Pony theme in the end credits.